<div dir="ltr"><h4>Stellenbosch University has conceded to students' demands to remove Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.</h4>
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<p>Last year, Open Stellenbosch, a group of students, protested over the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.</p><p>The students were calling for the use of English as its medium of instruction but its council rejected the proposal.</p><p>In
its first draft, the university's new proposed language policy said it
was prepared to advance multilingualism by placing emphasises on the
three of the most spoken languages in Western Cape - English, Xhosa and
Afrikaans - at undergraduate level.</p><p>"Emphasis is placed on
inclusivity, diversity and the effective construction of knowledge which
implies that a specific language may not be used to exclude students,
staff or other stakeholders," reads the language policy.</p><p>The proposed language policy states that Afrikaans and English are the university's learning and teaching languages.</p><p>It further says that for undergraduate modules up to and including third year, Afrikaans and English will be applied.</p><p>"For
modules where it is reasonable (in terms of enrolment, resources and
staff) and where it is pedagogically sound to divide the students in
more than one class group, parallel medium teaching is used with
lectures in Afrikaans and English for different class groups.</p><p>"However,
to prevent language isolation and to foster tolerance and respect, care
is taken by the lecturer(s) to provide opportunities for students from
the two language groups to meet and communicate across languages in
academic settings," reads the policy.</p><p>"In all other class groups
that are not divided, dual medium teaching is used where all information
is conveyed in English. Additional support is provided in Afrikaans
and/or English in the lecture and/or during auxiliary, facilitated
learning opportunities to assist students' understanding of the academic
material.</p><p>"This will depend on the capabilities of the lecturers
and teaching assistance. Real-time interpreting services from both
English to Afrikaans and Afrikaans to English can be offered to students
- especially in the initial study years."</p><p>Podcasts and vodcasts of lectures would be made available in Afrikaans, English and, in some cases, Xhosa .</p><p>The
university insisted it "remains committed to maintaining the status of
Afrikaans for academic, administrative and communication purposes ".</p><p>Stakeholders were provided with the proposed language policy on Tuesday and have 30 days to make submissions.</p><p>Other
former Afrikaans universities ( Pretoria and Free State) faced pressure
from protesting students demanding that Afrikaans be scrapped with the
latter giving in to the demands.</p><p>Stellenbosch University hopes to
implement the new language policy from January or "as soon as possible".
Member of Open Stellenbosch Jodi Williams said the movement would only
meet next week and it is then that they would say what their stance is
regarding the proposed language policy.</p><p>The university declined to comment until "the process has been concluded."</p><p><a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/03/24/stellenbosch-university-changes-its-language-policy">http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/03/24/stellenbosch-university-changes-its-language-policy</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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